| Monday, October 13th, 2008 |
| 12:47 pm |
life in Paris
So I should start by saying that I have started to develop a routine that I fit into perfectly each day. I mean with classes still continuing with the other study abroad students and then the classes that I am taking at Sorbonne Nouvelle I just have days that are filled with lots and lots of well class. Its hard to think that in reality I have begun to deal with the colonization of the french language in my head. In weird ways like saying things like : "I am in train of doing laundry" "Il faut que we catch the last metro" Its really weird. I know that my english is getting more awkward than it has ever been and I know that my french is just as awkward. So here is a brief recap of whats going on over here : 1 the classes that I am taking are two masters in communication classes one called approches socio discursives des messages télévisuels. and the other is a la théorie d'un mémoire. 2 In class it feels kindof like I am in an animal at the zoo where anytime some sort of debate needs to come up the prof says something along the lines of "Votre camarade americain qui s'asseids ici que pense-t-il ? " 3 Met some cool british kids one of which fell into the seine and we had to pull her out. Yes her knickers were wet This last weekend a bunch of us went to the drome which is in the south of france, about 2 hours on the TGV; It was really a lot of fun and I got to eat and by eat i mean try a few bites of a lot of different food. There was a lot of different types of cheese and every meal was at least 4 courses and 2 hours long. Lots of duck, lots of chevre and lots of champignons. Other things I did that have been super cool was that I went to the festival du jeu video where I got to see some of the weird frenchies like the association de jeu du role and perhaps rendu compte that i could learn a little more vocab by playing some french video games. |
| Monday, September 8th, 2008 |
| 1:50 pm |
A couple of weeks have passed since the last time that I posted on here so I am going to try and recount all the things that have happened! Like Parisians, who have similar ages to me, party just like the Americans with loud music, lots of people and more importantly never ending wine. However, it sucks showing up at a party where it is expected for you to give bisous to every person at the party. Mathmatically, if there were 20 people there and each person gave them to each person it means that something like 800 were exchanged at this party. Oh my goodness. However, it was really interesting because they kept saying generic english phrases to me whihc were not conjugated correctly like "Welcome in Paris". Class is going fine. This is the last week of super intensive language training which I am finding more to be busy work than learning new things. This afternoon I get to register for another class other than my required ones and I am hoping to be able to take francophone literature. That would be super chill but it seems that a lot of the students are trying to get into that class. So, it may not be what I am able to take. If I can't take that I want to take the parisien film class. I finally moved into the apartment that I will live at for the rest of the year with Mme Trotin and her nephew Hugo (who I have yet to meet). I mean things are super fantastic there and I hope that I finally get out of the stage where I feel super nervous about offending someone so I can feel more comfortable in my environment. Like I think I took a 4 minute shower this morning in an attempt to avoid interupting the rest of their day. I keep making silly mistakes like when I asked a resto that I wanted to do take out. I asked to emprunter as opposed to emporter... Lol... the confusion that ensued was incredible. |
| Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 |
| 2:41 pm |
I can't believe that I am actually in Paris right now. I mean right now I am sitting at the park Buttes Charmonts with my laptop (since wifi is free in the parks) and with a bottle of wine and with my baguette that I bought at the brasserie on my way over. I mean this is just so different that what I would consider as life in Boulder. I mean its the middle of the day and the park is very crowded, not only just with the students who are on vacation but with a bunch of people picnicing, people sitting down for a chat, drinking coffee and just enjoying themselves. I tend to think that Parisians are almost over proud of their parks which are the only refuge from the city it seems like. I mean I can still hear the traffic from here but the park really is a relief when I am a little homesick because I miss seeing the trees and the mountains. I had my first test on monday this week and I did much more poorly than I would have prefered. I mean I honestly got a 9/20 which I guess by french standards is a C- but I mean when I reread my test I made a lot of stupid mistakes. Like I misspelled Brazil in french which took off two points. Class, I don't know if I suggest this, well right now at least is in its intensive stage. I have 5 hours of French class a day. Then I have 1 hour of tutoring each week. Then once a week, after a 5 hour french class I have 4 hours of Aesthetic Parisian. This class is actually the most interesting as we go places in Paris and talk about what is going on there now, the history and what's cool to see there. Last night I went to the cinema and saw Le 400 Coups which is an amazing movie that I say in class this last year. It was super cheap to get in with a tariff etudiant which makes the city much more affordiable. |
| Monday, August 25th, 2008 |
| 12:15 pm |
I dont know what to say about life here. Not only am I going through an uncomfortable cultural adjustment but I'm also going through an uncomfortable gastrointestinal adjustment. I spend a good portion of my day just being out right naseuous and its simply because it takes the body some time to get used to the new bacteria in the food and probably that the food here that I am eating is quite different to that what I eat at home (Aka no fast food). I went to the pharmacie and asked about it and apparently it should go away on its on in a couple weeks but he gave me some medicine to help with things. Last night I explored what would be considered the Parisian china town which is different than both the other china towns that I have seen. It almost seems that it would be safe to call this the pan-atlantic quarter instead of trying to limit it to only one group of asians. I mean, even all of the restaurants seemed to specialize in more than one type of asian cooking and from that it was difficult to decide where to go. We ended up eating at this place that I had suspected that it would be good because it had a bunch of Asian people there (like that friends episode when Rachel tells monica We should go to that new italian place because I saw a lot of chinese people there and she responds that she said a chinese restaurant would be good if there were a lot of chinese people eating there :)) So we ate at this place which was not the cheapest but whatever and it simply gets more expensive because you have to order the rice to go along with your meal. So we ate at this place and found out suddenly that it was not amazing and it was hard to understand someone who was speaking french with an obvious chinese twang in their voice. I perhaps need to spend some more time training my ear. This weekend I walked a lot around paris digging my self in and around the quartiers trying to find some things super cool. I ended up finding myself hanging out a lot in the 3rd and 4th which had a lot of things to see but not neccesairly do. I went to the Picasso Museum which is in the 4th. It was funny because the more that we were in the museum the more and more I came to not really like his art. I just dont get why its so amazing. Friday night I met up with a frenchie that I knew and we walked around the fourth and he showed me all the stuff to see in the 3rd and 4th and told me about the famous ice cream stand a few blocks from notre dame and showed me where they did Paris Plage which is where they set up lounge chairs at different places around the city so that one can tan without having to leave the city. After all of that we decided that we were hungry and that we would like to go out to dinner. I said the choice belonged to them and they chose to go eat at MacDo's. I have never laughed so hard in my life because 1) there were no tourists inside 2) the menu is very american 3) it was chic to be seen there. And everyone seemed to love it. I'm still not used to ordering food in french especially at a place american. I mean here you demande le menu et le chose que tu veut if you want a meal. Except then all of the menu items are in english. I think I'm still making pretty huge issues with my speech as it hard much of the time to find words in my head that match the meaning. I was talking with some parisiens who thought it was funny and tres cool that I could only describe things with only 5 or 6 words. It was actually funny. I find myself hanging out with the americans and they all want to speak english all the time. I can understand why they want this to happen since i too feel the stress of communicating in french all day long. Not only is it a challange for my brain but its physically and mentally exhausting. After a few hours of speaking and listening in french I am ready to go take a nap and enjoy the rest of my day in french. I've been following the advice of my one of my profs back at colorado and I have been trying really hard to watch television so that I not only learn some new words but I learn expressions and I hear how it sounds. Thankfully the last few things that I have been watching have all been very physically funny and thus it hasn't been the world's biggest stretch to understand them. |
| Friday, August 22nd, 2008 |
| 12:41 pm |
Exploring the china town
Yesterday, I took the tourist boat with some of the Americans down the seine after my update and we went under 7 different bridges but I was a little upset that it didn't go down to the Pont Mirabeau because that poem will always be stuck in my head after having to recite it a few hundred times. After dinner, my friend and I went down to the asian quartier and began to look around. It was weird to see chinese shops selling thing that I would think would be only chinese american. Thinks like the advertisements for Sanrio in english were hanging everywhere including signs near the candy that said stuff like Happy mouth happy feet!. Its raining really hard today in the city which makes me not want to go out at all. I think I might just spend the night in the hotel room playing around on the internet and hanging out with a bottle or two of wine. I was really happy to have found my camera which I had through that I had left on the counter at home but I'm more sad that I didn't have it to deal with photos on the boat yesterday. Perhaps that would have identified us more as Americans that the way we were obviously dressed. I'm not sure yet if it is obvious that I am american all the time and I'm speaking in French all the time (Boy does my mouth hurt because I'm using those weird french muscles in the mouth). In further, I bought a french cell phone yesterday which the number is 0684240577. This was quite the experience and it put my french conversation skills to the test. I asked about different plans and it looks like I'm going to be using the mobicarte system which seems easy enough to use. It is free for me to recieve phone calls but please remember that I am 8 hours ahead of you in the states which is like the entire work day... because it is. A bunch of the students americans want to go see this concert next friday in which a lot of big names like the roots and Amy Winehouse but I don't think I'm going to go (It's 75 euros!!) It just doesn't seem worth it. I finally, after my time in Paris ventured into the 7th and saw the Eiffel tower yesterday which I am not sure how I feel. It's kindof weird. And its kindof nasty when they illuminate it at night. |
| Thursday, August 21st, 2008 |
| 1:14 pm |
Updates Gallore
Cultural adjustment to life here in Frace is going to be as difficult as always. I have always had need of making eye contact at others when I go places not because I want some verification but simply because I like looking at other people. This is not really allowed because of the mores of the society here. Especially on the metro which I believe I am now getting well versed enough to be riding with the aide of others. It just takes a little bit of time to figure out which stops are on which line but the Universite given Paris Practique and my black map and Lindy's map I can find anything that I need to. Class started yesterday which was intesting. It was really more an introduction to the types of classes I will be having here. For example, my professor who teaches Paris through the arts gave each of us an address and we had to go find out where it was and to figure out what it was and why it was important. I'm going to be living in the same hotel with the 2 other boys that I live with until September 2nd which is kindof hard. Basically two of us are sharing one full bed which we have pulled far enough apart since he believes he str8 but who knows for sure since he's an uber fem hipster. The other one is sleeping on the couch that is in our room. Both of them are very attractive and I just hope that things don't go awry while we are living in such small quarters. Last night we went out for dinner as a big group to this small French resto. It was very nice and inside but it was a little embarrassing being there with the other americans who were loud and burly and asking for weird orders (like the girl who thinks she is going to be able to find a bunch of food for (the waiter last night basically made fun of her to her face and after being confused for several minutes over what it means to be vegan and she kept trying to just say that she was vegan but didn't know the word (elle a dit "vegan" et le mot est vegetalien)) I had the canard which was delicious. It was almost like it was minced with some vegetables cooked in and then it had mashed potatoes on top and came with a salad and a duck gravy to plate it. The waiters put a bottle of wine on the table per every 4 of us and I didn't get any wine. The others were downing glass after glass and the bottles were empty before I got to them. Tonight I am taking a boat trip down the seine which I'm looking forward to it and I'll report some more when I get a chance. It's a little bit difficult to find internet at a cheap rate and the hotel isn't free any more. Jcomprends pas pour quoi c'est gratuit a commencement du visit? A bientot. |
| Monday, August 18th, 2008 |
| 7:24 pm |
Update.
Life here is kindof interesting. Well its actually just different. Lots of little things make it for being a completely different world which makes me miss home a little more each day. I've actually started dreaming in French which causes me to wake up when my subconsicous can't find the word or conjugation for something. And last night I had the strangest dream where I was trying to fly back to the U.S. to see people and fly back to France before things got started in my day. It was quite weird. And it involved a huge U.S. shopping mall and sub sandwiches. I am hoping to figure out how to create a stable internet connection here because every time the phone rings the internet goes down and for some strange reason the phone rings a lot. Class is actually going to be starting here quite soon but since its the mini quarter I only have one class which is intensive french language studies in which I earn 6 credit hours over 3 weeks. I'm hoping that it makes it so I can have a conversation without feeling like I'm a six year old trying to speak his mind. I guess all of that will be coming with time. I guess my biggest fear is that I am going to flop. For example, last night I saw the french film "Je deteste les enfants d'autres" and I don't know why I expected there to be but there were no subtitles. hah. I still don't know what happened in the movie even though I was paying attention. It was a comedy but the only time that I laughed is when something physical happened because I couldn't keep up with how fast everyone was speaking or they were using slang that I have never heard in my life. Added to more complex speaking style than what I'm used to and I'm a mess. I'm sure I am not the only one here though like that. I was worried at first about my university's standing among the other unis that were here with me like the two girls from Princeton and the girl from Harvard and I think were honestly all on the same page. It's a little bit lonely here. I only know a few people and it makes me miss the close relationships that I had with my friends at home where I was talking to them for a few hours a day. I'm sure I will make more friends as time goes on and that these things seem to be rough. The French are definitely what I expected (and I know generalizations are wrong). They all seem so cold and collected on the outside but when you break their shell you find genuine warmth compassion and the willingness to help. The city overall is amazing and the architecture makes me want to weep its so beautiful. I find myself constantly getting lost simply because I am admiring the architecture and following it places. Paris is definitely a city that needs to be explored on foot. My brain feels completely boggled and baffled all the time. I've been told about this effect when being in a place where you don't speak the language and you feel like you are underwater because you can hear voices but you can't decipher what they are saying exactly. Well that's how I feel here. My head and brain is completely underwater. It's obviously making thousands of new linguistic connections a day and its weighing on me. I haven't decided if I am going to come home being heavier or lighter than I was. I feel like I am already thinner which may be a good thing. Who ever knows. Though at this point I have re-fallen in love with breads and they perhaps will be my greatest enemy. When I can smell them fresh I just have to go and take a look and try a new one everyday. I always try to practice my coverstaion with the clerk who tries to help me when we speak with me coming in a couple of times a day. She doesn't speak any english and I think i made a faux-pas trying to tell her how much i liked the bread. She turned bright red and blushed. I'm still not sure what I said and when I asked her to explain to me she blushed and said it was sinful (or peach or fishing ;) ) to repeat. I'm sure it won't be the last time that I say something inappropriate or embarrassing but I guess thats half the fun of learning to communicate in a brand new language. |
| Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 |
| 2:44 pm |
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| Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 |
| 2:29 pm |
Greetings from Europe
I miss the internet. And my connection here is not so fantastic so I will let you know how things are going when i find a more productive connection |
| Friday, July 4th, 2008 |
| 12:36 pm |
B-day update
Well the 1st was my birthday so I have had 3 days of fun going to every fun place under the sun. The 1st, Graham, Lena, Erin and Kevin, Colter, and Elena all came out with me when we started my downtown tour having margaritas with lunch at Chili's and then we had dinner at Wynkoop and stayed at their bar all night. Two best drinks of the night were Long Islands and Surprise! You have gonorrhea! The second Erin, Kevin, Graham, Lena, and Dennis went to BD's and then Sing Sings. Great beer. Last night Steve took me down to Mary's and then JRs in Denver. |
| Thursday, June 26th, 2008 |
| 5:48 pm |
The following link tells me three things: 1) There is not enough going on in the city of Milford Haven 2) That my Nan and Mom apparently love me even though they have photos of me that I do not especially like. 3) No one listens to me in my family or knows how to spell our last name. http://195.2.225.81/013/adimages/TA444569.jpg |
| Friday, June 20th, 2008 |
| 1:25 am |
Haiku
Walking high and drunk tipsily down the hard road thinks of the munchies. |
| Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 |
| 2:58 am |
Well I would just like to point out a weird statistic.... 3/4 guys I have been on dates this last year have recently told me they are HIV+. I don't know how to feel. I mean I know that I am still neg which I'm grateful for. I just didn't know how to react to the phone call. One of them told me they found out while we were going out and suggested that was the reason they never called me again. I told him HIV status wasn't something that I was worried about in a relationship. No one ever realizes that I'm the one who doesn't pursue them and why I never called them back. I think I have commitment issues. |
| Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 |
| 1:24 am |
and... 21st birthday bash... ideas? |
| 1:19 am |
Things have been falling into place... Almost weirdly it seems. Like... I was just checking my bank account and saw that my visa has cleared so soon I will be the holder of a I can live in France for 16 months visa. Which just feels good. Everything is working out and so am I so I'm feeling much better other than I've gotten a farmers tan from being outside so much. |
| Monday, May 26th, 2008 |
| 2:10 am |
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| Monday, May 12th, 2008 |
| 1:04 am |
New hobbies are fun
So every year, I try a new artistic hobby during the summer. Like two years ago, I sanded and decoupaged 4 boxes over the summer and last year I learned all sorts of paper crafts for Kirsten's wedding. The new hobby this year is making Ukrainian Eggs which is really a lot of fun but a really hard thing to do. I hopefully will get better at it since I think having them as little art pieces would be really really snazzy. I even Ebay'd some and found them in price range from $20-500 so by making them myself I save a ton of cash and it gives me something to do during the day. I've also been having body self esteem issues lately and its really making me feel really bad. I don't know what to do about it other than work it out. And so I'm going to just work out a fuck ton through it. |
| Sunday, May 4th, 2008 |
| 3:48 am |
Busy Busy Busy
Life is so busy right now but there are a few important updates. Finals wise, I'm done with 4/5 at this point and I couldn't be happier. My last final is a french grammar exam which only covers the stuff presented in the last chapter so I have no worries about it. I'm gearing up to move out of my apartment and get ready to move to France for a year which is super exciting as well. In other news, my raiding guild, "Temptations" broke up even though we were consistently making it to Phase 4 Kael. So, myself, and 15 of my closest WoW friends all decided to reroll on a RPPVP server Maelstrom. If you are looking for me hit me up on my new toon Bacalou. Experiri has had his name saved though too and maybe if I have time this summer I will grind him up to 70. Graham and I hung out today and we decided we were going to unlock all of the content on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games which let me tell you is a crazy bitch of a game. My arm is so sore from shaking that Wii mote all night trying to get everything unlocked. |
| Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 |
| 9:34 pm |
I always find it really amusing when people send me messages like "Strike out against Gas Prices: Don't purchase any gas X Date and give it to the man." It just logically doesn't make sense to me. If you just don't buy gas for one day its not going to do anything because you're going to have to buy it at some point. I will admit, gas prices seem extremely high right now, especially with the decrease in average income. However, gas prices will continue to rise and they are not anywhere near how much a gallon of gas costs in Europe. |
| Monday, April 28th, 2008 |
| 9:21 pm |
I love the muppet show. I love it a lot. If I were a muppet I would probably be Fozzie Bear. Who would you be? |
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